UNVEILLING: Many Roots One People campaign’s The National Portrait and How To Participate

The National Portrait is conceived as a symbol of national unity in Nigeria. It symbolizes the beauty and strength in our unity in diversity.

With 371 unique and distinct tribes, Nigeria is indeed so richly blessed with individual talents which can be harnessed into a collective strength when properly embraced. It is for this very reason in this critical period of our nationhood that we have decided to initiate this project which would identify each piece of the Nigerian puzzle and combine them to showcase the strength therein. As we say, “Nigeria is not a mistake, mistakes don’t survive a hundred years”; also “the diversity of our nation is the beauty of its perfection”.

The National Portrait is a photo collage of a male and a female model dressed in the attires of each of the 371 tribes. Thus National Portrait would be passing the message “it doesn’t matter what tribe you’re from, we are all one and the same”, hence the explanation for having the diverse attires from each tribe and just one face.

The National Portrait when completed would be unveiled to the world with dignitaries from across Nigeria in attendance; after the unveiling ceremony we would be presenting the Portrait to the Presidency or House of Assembly for ratification as a national monument.

The tentative date for the unveiling of this monument is Sunday, 21st of May 2017; which is the International Day for Cultural Diversity and would be an ideal date to celebrate Nigeria’s Unity in Diversity.

As you can see this is an enormous task, but it isn’t impossible especially when we work on it collectively.

We would need your help in the following ways:

Gathering of information on the various tribes: we need to verify the facts on each tribe especially with regards the traditional attires. We would be opening a thread where you can help us identify the tribes, upload pictures of the respective traditional attires and suggest where or how we can acquire the said attires.

Funding: the project is rather capital intensive, we have a modest budget of N9.4million which covers costume, accessories, props, makeup, professional fees of photographers, models & make-up artiste, production of Portrait, logistics etc. In order to raise the needed funds we shall be employing crowd funding strategy, this way everybody can play a part. In the coming days I shall be unveiling how you can specifically contribute financially towards the project as well as promote it within your circle (we have included some perks for contributors).

Spreading the word: we would also like you to help us build a worldwide following for this project. Since we intend for it to be a symbol of national unity, we need to create awareness around the project which you can help us spread through your social media networks.

You can also volunteer directly to be a part of this project: for this we require passionate patriotic volunteers who would help drive this project with their skills and time. Either by sharing ideas that would aid execution; or promoting it on social or contemporary media; or linking us with persons of interest; or any other means you believe you can step in.